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I was behind bars when Thaddeus finally got the courage to come out. Though I had known for years, it was the first time he had openly admitted it. It was big. And I should have been there for him when he did it. When my aunt disowned him for it, when he had to face that rejection all by himself. And I knew how that felt. I knew how lonely that felt.
I wasn't there when he got his physical therapy certification. Or his fitness certification when he decided that helping people rehab from injuries wasn't what he wanted to do with his life, that he wanted the fun and freedom of helping people get in shape, in making his own hours.
He was, at first, all I had. He was the one filling my commissary. He was the one writing letters and calling, visiting when he had the time and money to travel.
He had believed me.
When the courts hadn't, when my aunt hadn't, when - it seemed - Colson hadn't.
And he had been the one trying to keep me grounded, trying to remind me that I would still be young when I got out, that there was no reason to feel like I lost my whole life because of this. He wanted me to think of the future, of what we would do when I got out, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I suspected it had been Thad that finally got through to Colson as well. I had never asked. But one day, there had been a letter. A week later, a call. And as I found out, I hadn't hardened up enough that I didn't need my big brother, didn't crave that calm, steadfast energy he had always had, something that had only grown in time as he got older, matured, got his life worked out.
Their calls and visits had been bittersweet for me.
Sweet because they were all I had, all I had ever had really.
But bitter because their lives moved on without me while mine stayed stagnant. Thad got so busy that his visits became less frequent. Colson found out the stick turned blue, and his life needed to be about something much more important than me.
I convinced myself it was for the best.
Because the longer I was there, the more time I had to think about Tanner, about how his life got to just go on while mine got ripped away from me.
I had been a good girl.
I didn't cut class.
I didn't drink.
I didn't do drugs.
I had only had sex two and a half times.
"Wait wait wait," Virgin cut me off, lips twitching. "How do you have sex two and a half times?" he asked. I sent him a lifted brow look that made him shake his head. "Got it," he agreed, clearly amused by Tanner's lack of prowess. "Go on. You were thinking about that shithead."
I did a lot of thinking about that shithead.
And the pain that had once been there, the aching, crippling betrayal, was suddenly gone.
All I had left was rage.
Oddly, the rage helped. It kept a fire burning in my belly, helped me get through the endless days and the longer nights.
"You didn't make any bonds inside? In all that time?" There was a silent question there How the fuck did you cope without connections?
It wasn't like I didn't talk to anyone. I did, obviously. You couldn't spend a decade in prison without speaking to anyone. Well, one woman could. None of us could tell if she was deaf, or maybe out of her mind, or simply had no interest in interacting with any of us. She'd been there before I got there, was still there when I left. But I wasn't like her. There were times when I craved normalcy, when I did reach out.
I let one of the girls who worked as an esthetician on the outside put homemade face masks on me out of commissary items - honey and Pepto or aloe and cold cream. I helped some of the girls make a 'spread' - a special food dish made out of items entirely purchased from the commissary - to celebrate birthdays or holidays.
Then there were the women in the kitchen.
We became our own little community twice a day - brunch and dinner always being served - three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. When we were there, we felt like we had a little more freedom. Sure, we had a schedule. And the knives had to be unlocked and then accounted for before we were allowed to leave after a meal, but we could move around without anyone scrutinizing us, do things we had been able to do in our old life.
Cooking for a prison was a challenge too.
There was, roughly, a sixteen-cent stipend per inmate per meal which meant we generally got the cheapest of everything to cook with. Rice. Boxed potato flakes. Beans. The crappiest, grisliest, fattiest cuts of meat. Canned or frozen vegetables. Limited spices. No salt. We had to be heart-healthy, after all, according to state guidelines.
